Feb 17, 2025
AI: In everything, everywhere, all at once
Last year we wrote about how Y Combinator — the world’s preeminent startup accelerator that has backed Airbnb, Reddit, and Stripe — was seeing an overwhelming influx of founders and startups working in AI.
Indeed, data from Y Combinator reveals that some 80% of the companies in its Startup Directory last year had “AI” in either the company name or description of what it does. Just five years ago, that proportion was only 15%.
Clearly, there are multiple factors at play. Some are straightforward:
- AI is progressing on a weekly or even daily basis, creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs to use AI as a tool in almost every industry.
Some are a bit more cynical, like FOMO, signaling, or playing the odds:
- VC investors don’t want to miss out on the boom, with some blindly backing almost anything AI-adjacent.
- Startup founders know that AI is the hot thing now, and are finding ways to incorporate it into their products... no matter what their original product idea was.
See the full article here.